The Super Bowl, you and brand storytelling

It’s crazy!

I don’t even like, understand or follow American football

or watch the Super Bowl, the final of American football for the year.

 

I love all the commentary that I read on my social media.  Tom Brady certainly seems to be a legend!!

But sport is not my thing.

 

Brand storytelling most certainly is, though – “my thing.”

 

I am always fascinated by the ads at the Super Bowl, and the discussion and dissection around them.

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“But what does that have to do with me?” you ask.

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Well, if you are interested in brand storytelling …

in other words, if you need to promote yourself, subtly, powerfully, so that you get that raise, get the promotion, convince the Board to take a course of action,

if you need to stand out from the rest of the service providers, sales people in your field, if you want to grow your business,

if you want to change the world,

 

you must be interested in brand storytelling

the best way to be seen, be heard and be chosen for what you offer.

 

And the ads at the Super Bowl were created by

some of the biggest brands with the biggest budgets

 

which not only makes for great entertainment and a break from life alongside the Super Bowl,

but also gives us an insight into just what is possible with brand storytelling.

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There are so many ads and so many ways of looking at them all.  I’ve chosen two to get you and me thinking about what it takes to win brand loyalty

and what we might adopt from those with the dollars to create that.

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Bruce Springsteen for Jeep and Budweiser’s Bud Light Selzer lemonade.

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I’m not a fan of The Boss – just don’t know enough about him.

Watching his ad for Jeep, I was fascinated by the attempt at acknowledging the times (the bigger story) and appealing to unity,

by the appeal, too, to traditional American values of the wild west, national identity and home.

But it felt contrived to me, flat, not what I would expect from a Super Bowl ad that is meant to be a little escapist.

To each his own, of course.  It appealed to many.

And Jeep’s branding is aimed at those who choose to go offroad, either metaphorically or physically.

 

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I was sad there were no Budweiser draft horses.  I always love their ads.  I guess I just love story!!

And then I discovered the Bud Light lemonade Seltzer creation.

Yes it kept the story of our times front and centre, but added a lightness to it.

Yes it was escapist.

Yes the final conversation echoed most.

If you haven’t watched it, here it is … And then I have a question for you …

 

Maybe it’s not YOUR favourite..

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The question (or several questions) I have for you – and for us – all of us using brand stories in one way or another is

What is YOUR bigger story?

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Who do you think (from this ad, or maybe already know) is Bud Light’s target market?

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And even more importantly, whether you are in business, have a career or are changing the world,

Who is yours?

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Please feel free to add you answers to the comments below.

If you came here from an email, please go back to the email I sent and share your answers with me.

Either way, I would love to see what you think, what your answers are.

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I will be teaching a new course in brand storytelling, in my Story to Stage Academy, which starts in May, but if you would like some support or coaching around your brand and story, please message me and we can chat.

 

 

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Your Story Matters – Sing it!

 

That bird – he sings.

He doesn’t stop to ask if he is good enough.

He doesn’t stop to ask which song would be best.

He doesn’t practise first.

He sings.

And the song is just exactly how it is meant to be.

 

Your story.

BEFORE

you ask if you are good enough to live it or to tell it

BEFORE

you ask how it should be lived or told

BEFORE

you practise living or telling

just “sing”.

 

What is your message then – if you tell your own story?

What would your life be if you lived your own story?

 

Your story matters in its own pure reality. Sing it!

So that the message is pure, so that the life is your own.

 

Then you can polish so it is good enough.

Then you can choose the parts of most value.

Then you can practice.

But only then!!

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Speakers – build your brand using stories

Stories are a subtly powerful way to support your speaking outcomes.

You can use them to support the points you want to make, but you can also use them to position yourself in the eyes of your audience.

When you speak you need to be seen as an expert, though an approachable expert, and the audience needs to understand you and your why.

They need to know why they should listen to you and why they should do what you expect from them at the conclusion of your speech.

You also have an opportunity to establish yourself and your brand in their memories, through the power of storytelling.

Here are 4 specific ways you can use storytelling to build your brand…  Read the article at my public speaking blog

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Standing out in the deluge

Read more
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8 Principles for Achieving Brand Leadership in the 21st Century

A New Brand World

8 Principles for Achieving Brand Leadership in the 21st Century

 

By Scott Bedbury, Stephen Fenichell

 

 

What does it really take to succeed in business today?

 

 

Now in paperback, this powerful and practical guide to brand building is offered by a man who helped propel Nike and Starbucks beyond mere sneakers and coffee.

 

In A New Brand World, Scott Bedbury, who helped make Nike and Starbucks two of the most successful brands of recent years, explains this often mysterious process by setting out the principles that helped these companies become leaders in their respective industries. With illuminating anecdotes from his own in-the-trenches experiences and dozens of case studies of other winning–and failed–branding efforts (including Harley-Davidson, Guinness, The Gap, and Disney), Bedbury offers practical, battle-tested advice for keeping any business at the top of its game.

About the Author

Scott Bedbury was Senior Vice President of Marketing at Starbucks from 1995 to 1998. Prior to that he spent seven years as head of advertising for Nike, where he launched the “Bo Knows” and “Just Do It” campaigns. He is currently an independent brand consultant and a speaker for the Leigh Bureau.Stephen Fenichell is the author of Plastic: The Making of A Synthetic Century and Other People’s Money. His articles have appeared in New York, Men’s Journal, GQ, Lear’s, Spy, Connoisseur, Condé-Nast Traveler, and Wired.

 

ISBN: 0142001902
Publisher: Penguin Books

 

 

 

 

the_nilebook_depositoryfishpondamazon

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The story principles Nike uses will work for you too.

 

 

This is marketing.

And

it’s a story.

 

And there’s

one word

behind that marketing,

one word

behind that story …

“Grit”.

 

Yes it’s Nike.

Yes they probably pay their creative/advertising team huge wages.

 

But those two principles can be applied to all marketing, everywhere.

And you can apply them no matter what your marketing budget.

 

What is your product/client story?

What is the one word behind your story, behind your marketing, behind your brand?

 

After that it just remains for you to find places to tell that story.

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Your story online – Are you contributing to global change?

If there is only one message in all that I teach/coach/mentor, or even think, about branding and brand storytelling, it is the everything counts – everything communicates.

 

So … you changed your Facebook profile image to rainbow style.

 

 

 

This is what mine would have looked like, had I adopted it.  I didn’t, not for any particular reason, just didn’t.

I tend to be suspicious of things like that, hence this article, I think.

It all fascinates me.

But stay with me …

Maybe you wanted to communicate, “I support Gay Pride”  or maybe,  “I support equality of marriage rights.”

 

 

Did it occur to you that maybe you were part of an experiment, or a study; that maybe your behaviour could be part of a study that would provide data on how to create a social movement?

I remember Mark Zuckerberg being quoted as saying he wanted Facebook to be a force for change.

Perhaps he really did … and does.

The concept is awesome, to me, absolutely awesome!

That underneath the frippery of so much of our social interaction, and underneath the striving to stand out as a business and to attract business, and underneath the efforts to communicate a hope for something better in our lives, there is the massive potential for change.

 

Under the frippery, the business striving, the individual ripples,

there is a giant wave of potential for change.

 

 

Did you read the recent article in the Atlantic?  It discussed this possibility, citing a published report …

In “The Diffusion of Support in an Online Social Movement,” Bogdan State, a Stanford Ph.D. candidate, and Lada Adamic, a data scientist at Facebook, analyzed the factors that predicted support for marriage equality on Facebook back in March 2013. They looked at what factors contributed to a person changing his or her profile photo to the red equals sign, but the implication of their research is much larger: At stake is our understanding of whether groups of citizens can organize online—and how that collective activity affects larger social movements.

The article is a fascinating read- there’s that word again, fascinating, but it really describes my reaction!!

Were you, in fact, indulging in “slacktivism”?!!

On this, the broader scale, the possibilities inherent in social media just fascinate intrigue me.

The fascination feeling of intrigue interest – began for me, with that suggestion regarding Mark Zuckerberg’s intentions and was heightened when the changes in the Middle East were linked to social media activity, especially on Twitter.

What will happen?

What are we all doing, unconsciously?

What is possible?

What change?

For good … or for bad?

We really are a global community!

What vision is now so much more possible/realistic/achievable?

The Atlantic article concluded with these words

Even seemingly small online actions—clicking the “like” button, changing one’s profile photo—are being tracked and analyzed. Just like McAdam’s research on Freedom Summer shapes our understanding of support for marriage equality, Facebook’s past research on marriage equality has helped answer a question we all face when deciding to act politically: Does the courage to visibly—if virtually—stand up for what a person believes in have an effect on that person’s social network, or is it just cheap, harmless posturing? Perhaps the rainbow colors across Facebook will become part of the answer.

And I return to the smaller scale – you and me – and the original thought — EVERYTHING COMMUNICATES — but now we know it communicates in ways we may never have envisaged.